Volvo Trucks and The Viral Van Damme Spectacular

Volvo has taken their brand image to the next level. Their latest video has seen viral results in the past five days. With over 30 million views on YouTube and over 1.6 million shares on social media, Volvo has struck viral gold. Uploaded to YouTube on the 15th of November 2013, the collaboration between Van Damme and Volvo is simply genius.

Barbara Lippert, an advertising columnist from mediapost.com com says, “This is completely unique. It’s an incredible human way to show the equilibrium of the steering of the truck,” she says, adding that “anyone who knows anyone who drives a truck or owns a truck will mention it to them. People love this stuff.”

By using social media as the basis of their campaign, Volvo used this strategically to target not only their existing target market, but they’ve begun targeting future truck drivers in the younger generation too. Smart move, Volvo. Smart move.

The video depicts the legendary action movie star demonstrating the stable and secure steering of Volvo trucks by balancing between them, one leg on each. As the truck moves back, Van Damme does the splits and holds it with a triumphant music score in the background.

Whether or not this video spectacular improves brand image or increases sales is one thing. But what’s for sure, is that this is one video that will be spoken about for a long, long time.